Help SkiMore find the skis of his childhood (photos included)

[Dave Petersen]

From Pugski member @SkiMore


"I would love to find a pair of my first skis. Here are a couple of pictures when I was 3 at Bear Valley CA. The one picture shows the ski as Champion. The other picture looks like a different set of skis. Do you recognize those skis? Any information on these sets of skis would be appreciated. I would love to find a pair to buy for nostalgia if you have any thoughts".

 

[Dave Petersen]

Great photo of @SkiMore -- quickly took out a few creases and scratches in Photoshop.

 

[Jack skis]

First, I do not recognize those skis. Second, around the time those skis were on the market I was working in a ski shop in the Denver area. We sold a lot of skis, and ski packages that looked a lot like those in your pictures. Our supplier was A & T Ski Company operated out of Seattle. They bought skis manufactured in Japan and sold them in big batches to shops in the Western US. OU Sports, another Seattle firm did the same. The binding looks like a Salomon Lift cable and toe piece, part of our ski package, and a binding supplied by A & T. The skis had various labels, like Champions, but we never knew the factory, just called them A & T skis. Lots of'em were sold, both adults and kids lengths, and for the times they were good enough skis. So they looked like skis we sold, but most shops had similar skis, and I'd be surprised if any are still around. Maybe sold by interior decorators for $100's of dollars now.

 

[SkiMore]

Thank you @Dave Petersen for fixing my photo. That turned our really nice.

@Jack skis thanks for the reply and for the information about how skis were sold and distributed at the time. I found a bit more information online including a ski with the A&T label but the label seemed larger than what I can see in the picture. I will keep looking.

 

[Royal]

the toe onthe chapions is a SKI free (SKIfree?) toe. not a bad little toe. easily re-buildable and has as much elasticity as a Marker simplex(read none)